thepollster

No disrespect intended, but his nickname was "Spicoli", right? Was this because he smoked a lot of pot? It wouldn't be the first time someone went in on a no-pull while high.

The companies I buy from have a sense of humor. They just don't have to put down other manufactures to advance their product.

Cheap shot. I'm glad I didn't buy gear from a manufacture where the reps resort to this.

The number of times I've had to teach newbies how to simply turn off a Cypres, never mind the dificulty of doing so - shows me clearly that there is room for improvement in one specific area - turning it off. The fact that Airtec recently released a "swoop" Cypres shows that there had been room for improvement in that specific area, too. The fact that Airtec recently released version 2, which was different than version 1 shows that Airtec beleived there was room for improvement. No device is perfect. I see a bunch of people arguing that the Cypres is perfect. Quite frankly, that's absurd. _Am I've shown countless experienced jumpers how to turn off a Cypres. I interpret that as it is not likely to accidently turn off a Cypress when you think you are turning it on. To clarify, it is a good thing. The swoop mode for a Cypres makes it less likely to work when needed by the vast majority of skydivers. A compromise for a vocal minority. Not an improvement in my book. The Cypres2 is an improvement on the original. But the functionality remains the same. The only differences I know of are the power source and the water resistance. I don't think I'd call it more user friendly because of that.

Many people (not just swoopers), myself included, have found they don't enjoy flying a canopy with short risers. So if you have short arms and 19s are the longest you can safely fly, that would be your ideal length. However, if you can reach the slider on 22s, you would probably enjoy the 22s more once you tried them. To prove my point, try and find the shortest risers you can find, which should be 16 or 17 inches, and hook them up to your canopy and report to us what you thought. I've done that and found it substantially harder than landing my normal risers, even straight-in.

My money is on 938.

I advise most people to get the longest risers you can find and still reach the slider on. People with longer arms are going to be able to use a different length than others, so it is a very personal choice. As for keeping the slider down, a piece of webbing sown to both front risers will do the trick without attaching the slider to you rig or jumpsuit. There is a fancier version called s-locks, so consult your rigger on what they can do for you.

As it has been said by other posters, the Sabre2 is a good canopy to learn on, but so is the original Sabre. You will make mistakes during your progression, and if you downsize now you take away forgiveness your current canopy offers in perhaps the most dangerous stage of swooping (learning). Also, I would not take advice from anyone who advises you to start doing turning approaches before mastering double fronts, and also braked approaches. And by mastering, I don't mean 20 jumps. Also, if you aren't current (judging by the Iraq sigline) you have no business starting to learn swooping. You should already have read everything you can find on canopy piloting before ever trying anything close to the ground. Brian Germaine and John LeBlanc have both written some good articles, and LeBlanc's articles can be found for free on the PD website. I tried to link "The book of canopy control" by Bryan Burke, but the site appears to be down. The Burke article is used as an outline for some canopy schools, and contains a lot of good info that should help keep you alive.

Not to suggest that a BSR should not be followed but could you please tell me what the "R" stands for? While it does stand for requirement, there is no law requiring you to obey it. It is prudent to follow BSRs, but you won't go to jail or get fined if you don't. Of course, if you are a DZO or S&TA and a student gets hurt due to you not following the BSRs I wouldn't want to be you.

Why anyone relies on packing money for rent is beyond me, but I realize it's partly the nature of the industry. Duh, because it is a job.

The joke is on you, old man. We had all that music plus U2, R.E.M., Nirvana, The Clash, etc. And we didn't have the Monkees jammed down our throats. Pearl Jam and RHCP played my college. And we invented moshing.

"I'm thinking of something orage, something orange, I am thinking of something orange. You give up? Its an orange"

• VH-1 markets right at you, assuming that you lost all interest in new music several years ago and will wallow in utter crap if it might remind you of your high school days (as in the annoying 80s shows and the sheer shame of their crappy 'Best Songs of the Last 25 Years'; yeah, wonder who they made that list out for...). • Friends of your peer group will try to convince you that Motley Crue and Poison were classic bands (nope, they sucked then and they suck even more today). • Friends of your peer group will try to convince you that Top Gun and Better Off Dead were classic films (nope, see above). • Young friends are often convinced you don't dig Blink 182 and Evanescence just because you are old (could be, but I seriously doubt it). • Older friends assume you know nothing about music past early U2 or films before John Hughes. • Classic rock stations ease off of 60s classics to find room for awful 70s one-name arena rock bands because, hey, you're supposed to dig it (Journey, Foreigner, Styx, etc., etc.). • Younger people start calling you 'sir' (they mean well, but my, it just seems so wrong...). • True story - When telling a younger friend about how much I love Bringing Up Baby, said friend replied, "Yeah, but that's just because it was big when you were a teenager." • You suddenly realize that younger friends consider Nevermind and Achtung Baby 'classic rock.' • You suddenly realize that friends your age consider The White Stripes and The Strokes 'noise.' • You suddenly realize that Nevermind and Achtung Baby ARE 'classic rock,' both being well over a decade old. • You realize as much distance separates today from The Joshua Tree than separated The Joshua Tree from Who's Next. You also realize that more distance separates today's teenagers from the 70s than separated your teenage years from the 50s. _________________

You also have the big Lebowski and Snatch quotes. You'd have better luck if they weren't all in the same post. F'ing clouds

What makes that even more funny is that Carlos, who plays one of the cops on the show, is a jumper himself. BTW, he was also the Taco Bell dog, you know, yo queiro taco bell

Did they train you to pull the reserve THEN release the main? Cutting away a bag lock should stop you from "towing my trash". That is how you wrote in, and being a rigger you should know how how an RSL works. That being said, I think RSL's are a good thing for the majority of jumpers.

I stand corrected. Maybe back then they thought airlocks would sell. I'm not knocking them, but it seems not enough jumpers want them to warrant them trying to compete with Brian Germaine for that market share.

You cannot be faster than a RSL and still pull your handles in the correct order. How much slower is dependant on the individual.

IMHO, in occurance of tension knots is higher (w/ dacron) as well. A q. for Bill Booth: If, as you claim, people used to get knocked out from hard openings, why do they now get injured instead of knocked out? It seems to me like openings in the old days were harder with dacron than we have now with no stretch lines.

Wow! The voice of maturity on leaving this cult sport usually doesn't come from anyone with low jump numbers. It is nice to keep that perspective.

My educated guess is there will be no second in the series of airlocks from PD because will be because they didn't sell many. Not that they ever called it a series, and not that they stopped making the Vengeance. Psst! You do realize Cloudi works for PD, right?

There is. It is over on Jim Slaton's website, where it belongs, since he seems to be the only one teaching GL worldwide.

I don't own a DZO, so I can't vote. While the DZ's I jump at have diverse owners, the one common thin is I like the DZs and support the biz. If the DZO is trying to "stick it to me" I won't give him my money.

*bump*

Is she a relative of Heath? That might explain some things BTW, is "eggshell" a new medical term? I keep hearing she "eggshelled" her face.